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Socialist wins French presidency

Francois Hollande portrayed himself Sunday as a vehicle for change across Europe. | AP Photo

While some market players have worried about a Hollande presidency, Jeffrey Bergstrand, professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame, said it’s a good thing that Hollande will push for more spending throughout Europe to stimulate the economy.

Europe is “going into a really serious and poor situation,” Bergstrand said. Hollande “is going to become the speaker for those countries that want to do something about economic growth.”

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Sarkozy conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, saying he had called Hollande to wish him “good luck” as the country’s new leader.

“I bear responsibility. … for the defeat,” he said. “I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn’t succeed in convincing a majority of the French. … I didn’t succeed in making the values we share win.”

Sarkozy came to office on a wave of hope for change that critics say he squandered even before the economic crises hit. They saw his tax reforms as too friendly to the rich, his divorce in office and courtship of supermodel Carla Bruni as unseemly, and his sharp tongue as unfitting for his esteemed role.

French politicians now turn their attention to parliamentary elections next month. With what appears to be a thin victory margin, Hollande must more than ever count on a healthy majority in June legislative elections — the next challenge for Sarkozy’s conservatives.

“The hour is one of mobilization. … We must not give all the power to the left,” said Jean-Francois Cope, leader of Sarkozy’s UMP party.

The Socialists will have blanket control of the country if they get a majority in the decisive lower house of parliament. They already preside over the Senate and hold most regions and municipalities in France.

Hollande has pledged to tax the very rich at 75 percent of their income, an idea that proved wildly popular among the majority of people who don’t make nearly that much. But the measure would bring in only a relatively small amount to the budget, and tax lawyers say France’s taxes have always been high and unpredictable and that this may not be as much of a shock as it sounds.

Hollande wants to modify one of Sarkozy’s key reforms, over the retirement age, to allow some people to retire at 60 instead of 62. He wants to hire more teachers and increase spending in a range of sectors, and ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy. He also favors legalizing euthanasia and gay marriage.

Sarkozy supporters call those proposals misguided.

“We’re going to call France the new Greece,” said Laetitia Barone, 19. “Hollande is now very dangerous.”

Sarkozy had said he would quit politics if he lost, but was vague about his plans Sunday night.

“You can count on me to defend these ideas, convictions,” he said, “but my place cannot be the same.”

Sarkozy alienated many voters with a lunge to the right during the last two weeks of campaigning as he tried to lure backers of the far-right anti-EU and anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front party.

People of all ages and ethnicities celebrated Hollande’s victory at the Bastille. Ghylaine Lambrecht, 60, who celebrated the 1981 victory of Mitterrand, was among them.

“I’m so happy. We had to put up with Sarko for 10 years,” she said, referring to Sarkozy’s time as interior and finance minister and five years as president. “In the last few years, the rich have been getting richer. Now long live France, an open, democratic France.”

“It’s magic!” proclaimed Violaine Chenais, 19. “I think Francois Hollande is not perfect, but it’s clear France thinks it’s time to give the left a chance. This means real hope for France. We’re going to celebrate with drink and hopefully some dancing.”

Puleeze. Elections in France or any other European nation have zero bearing on results in the USA or the America's in general.

So now, if the Socialists in France fail to bring a rapid and booming economy - and they will fail - THEY will be held accountable and broadcast as an example of another failure of Socialism which has brought Europe to the fiscal crisis it is in in the first place.

A squeaker. Barely won it. Not a landslide. Not a mandate. The pressure is now totally on the Left to quickly grow a robust, massive, business oriented economy. The Left, being the natural haters of business will fail miserably and set the world stage as the 21st century failure of Leftist ideology.

Ironically hilarious is that in the end, Islam will likely rule France.

The failure of austerity in France and Greece marks the end of the Tea Party in America......

The policies of Norquist, Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, and Romney have failed in Europe...it has led to S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M.....!!!!!!!!!

The United States is NEXT...!!!! OCCUPY THE VOTE........!!!!!!!!

ya beat me to it brother! of course they'll deny it now but i remember when conservatives on these boards boasted of how the euro zone was going conservative with the election wins of zarkozy, cameron, merkel's win of a second term in '09 and the new spanish government coming to power.

recall april 2009 G20 when president obama's failure to persuade merkel & sarkozy to buy-in on stimulus for euro nations like greece, spain & italy was depicted as a failure by our own media & some print press... wingers were howling in laughter dancing in the inzone celebrating the failure of our own stimulus passed just months before.

PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME LATER WHEN IT'LL COST YA 2 & 3 TIMES AS MUCH. is the the moral here. austerity has been an outd failure in europe. yet romney & the GOP STILL think it the prescription for the US economy when we're doing heads above them...

"More government spending and higher taxes — including a 75-percent income tax on the rich" — Tell that to the rich and to conservatives and Republicans here in America. Nevertheless, Ryan so-called budget is doomed!

Say goodbye to the Euro. Wonder how long it will take for the socialist agenda to turn France into another Greece? It's a shame the media is too sold out and the left too stupid to see the relationship between failed liberal policy and Europe's decline. You'd think one of those genius's in the press would note what happens when a nation tries to over tax half the citizen's in order to allow the other half to live well without working. I guess they'd have to start asking Obama and his team some hard question's if they did though. Not a chance of that happening.

They tried the GOP way of severe and sudden cuts several places in Europe and it FAILED badly, as it has for decades almost everywhere its been tried. No country has ever CUT itself into growth. What you do is grow your GDP to eliminate debt.

If you cut your spending and hence demand, and hence shrink your work force, and hence your tax revenue base, isn't that a spiraling cycle to depression? Note the 90s at the tax level Obama calls for whence we created 23million jobs and was trending towards surplus. Trickle down and cuts to the 99% of the country does not work!!!! Meanwhile Obama is Republican lite of the 90s in policies, as is his Obamney healthcare plan as well as his capntrade plan and his 43% tax cut stimulus.